
Glass. 
Book 



c^ 



.L. 



/ 



THE WRONGS TO MISSOURI'S LOYAL PEOPLE. 



S P E E C H 



J-^ 



CHAELES D. DRAKE, 



BEFORE Till 



MASS CONVENTION AT JEFFERSON CITY, SEPTEMBER I, 1863. 



Fellow Citizens of Oie Convention: 

I respond, without hesitation, to your invita- 
tion to address you ; and as the period of our 
session must necessarily be brief, I will claim 
your attention no longer than may be necessary 
for a sufficient and truthful discussion of the 
circumstances which have led to our assembling. 

Every member of this body will agree with me 
that those circumstances are extraordinary. 
From nearly thirty years' intimate acquaintance 
with Missouri, I am prepared to affirm that no 
Mass Convention of her people ever assembled 
under circumstances so extraordinary as those 
which surround us now. I congratulate you 
that you have the nerve and the patriotism to 
como from your distant homes, to show the 
world that you are able and willing to meet like 
men the exigency which is upon you. 

We are loyal Union men, without any qualifi- 
cation or conditions ; and we are, and are not 
afraid to declare that we are, Eadicals. That 
is, we are for going to the root of the infamous 
rebellion which has distracted our land for more 
than two years, and are for destroying that as 
well as the rebellion. That root is tJie institution 
of iSLAVERT. From it the rebellion sprang, by 
it has been sustained, in it lives, and with it 
will die. And until that root is pulled up and 
destroyed, there is no hope of permanent peace 
in our country. Therefore I am for pulling it 
up, every fibre of it. And that is what I under- 
stand it is to be a Radical. By that I stand or 
all. The position is one which necessarily ad- 



mits of no compromise. It is Country or Sla- 
very ; and he is a traitor who will compromise 
between them. 

This, in a few words, is what I hold to be our 
character and position here to-day. I am not 
afraid to go before the world upon it. I should 
despise myself, if I took any other. It follows 
that I am for using every legitimate means ta^ 
destroy the rebellion, and to crush down, wipe 
out, and utterly annihilate every development, 
form, and hue of disloyalty. I would pursue 
disloyalty through all its infinite turnings and 
twistings, and hunt it down, ferret it out, and 
drive it forth, till throughout our State and our 
land no disloyal hand should be raised, nor dis- 
loyal tongue speak, against our glorious Union _ 

It follows, further, that I uphold the Procla- 
mation of Emancipation issued by President 
Lincoln on the 1st of January, 1863. I believe 
that Proclamation to have been a Constitutional 
exercise of the war power of the Commander- 
in-Chief of the Ai-my and Navy of the United 
States, against public enemies. "Were they for- 
eign enemies, no American would question his 
rigjjit to strike at their main support: I affirm 
his right to strike at any and every support of 
our domestic enemies — the worse, by far, of the 
two. And it was a righteous exercise of his 
power. Slavery assailed the nation of which 
he was the head, and he was bound to assail 
Slavery in turn, even to its very death. And I 
hold that his Proclamation did, in law, free 
every slave in all the region it covered, on the 






very day it was issued. Not one of them has 
been lawfully held in slavery since that day; 
nor can one of them, in my opinion, 
ever be lawfully enslaved again. The Proela- 
mation is irrevocable— as irrevocable as death. 
No attempt at its revocation can ever make 
slaves again of those it made free. I accept 
and uphold it as the end of Slavery in the rebel- 
lious States, and I demand its enforcement 
there by the whole warlike power of the loyal 
people of the nation, as the only means of re- 
storing abiding peace to our bleeding country. 

And holding it right to use every lawful 
means to overwhelm rebellion, I rejoice that the 
President is enrolling among our country's 
armed hosts those whom his proclamation freed. 
I have no squeamishness about arming the negro. 
I am no half-breed Unionist, sensitive about 
seeing white men fight alongside of the ''Ameri- 
can citizen of African descent." No traitor is 
too good to be killed by a negro, nor has any 
traitor a right to insist on being killed by a 
white man. If for the sake of Slavery he turns 
traitor, let former slaves be his executioners ; 
it is a just and fit retribution. Disaffection, if 
not disloyalty, lurks in him who opposes the 
arming of the negro, let him call himself what 
he may. For my part, 1 say to the President, 
Oo on in. this good loorTc, till the army of Macks shall 
he large enough to hold every rebel in subjection; and 
then rebellion is at an end for ever and ever in 
this land. 

I have been thus plain in the expression of 
these views, because 1 believe them to be the 
views heartily entertained by the entire body of 
the Radical Union men of Missouri. I do not 
believe there is one such man in our State who 
does not hold them, and who is not determined 
to stand by them. They spring from the deepest 
convictions of stern duty to our country and to 
the cause of Liberty. With him who opposes 
them we have nothing to do but to oppose him, 
and by all rightful means overthrow and put 
himdown. And that, my friends, is just the work 
which the Radicals of Missouri have before them. 

To us are opposed a portion of the people of 
Missouri, who style themselves Conservatives. 
And who are they >: Let the plain truth bespoken. 
They emhrace all the disloyal. Every rebel in the 
State is with them. Every open or secret seces- 
sionist is with them. Every guerrilla and 
bushwhacker is with them. Every Copper- 
head is with them. Every man who op- 
poses the radical policy of the Govern- 
ment against the rebellion is with them. f:very 
man who is under bond for disloyal practices 
or sentiments, is with them. Every sympa- 
thizer with the rebellion is with them. Almost 
every pro-Slavery man is with, them. And nine- 



tenths of the slaveholders, I believe, are with 
them. And along with this motley gang of open 
enemies to, or faint-hearted friends of, the 
Union cause, are associated just enough of real 
Union men to save the concern from going down 
instantly under the weight of its inherent and 
envenomed disloyalty. Nothing keeps that 
party alive this day but the presence of those 
Union men in its ranks, and the concentration of 
official patronage and influence. State and National^ 
in, iheir hands. They are the sugar-coat to the 
poison-pill which is sought to be admin- 
istered to the people of Missouri. They 
alone give character to Conservatism in 
Missouri. They have suffered themselves to 
be identified with that class of our population, 
which would drag Missouri out of the Union in 
a moment, if they could; and they are sup- 
ported and urged on by every man in the State 
whose hand or heart has been or is against his 
country. 1 profoundly regret that any of them 
should ever have been found in such company ; 
but they are there, and must share the fate which 
surely awaits every disloyal man, whenever 
Missouri's loyal people can once have access to 
the ballot-box. 

Such, my fellow-citizens, is what you and I 
know to be the position of parties in Missouri 
this day. It is not a matter of conjecture or 
supposition; we l-noio it. We know that 
throughout this whole State there is not one sin- 
gle disloyal man in the Radical ranks. We know 
that every disloyal man in the State is a Con- 
servative. We know, and desire the whole 
world to know, that the struggle now going on 
here, though ostensibly connected with 
the subject of Emancipation, is, in re- 
ality, between Loyalty and Disloyalty. The 
Union cause is at stake again, and the 
result will determine whether the destiny of 
this great commonwealth is to remain in the 
hands of its loyal people. For one, 1 will strug- 
gle, against all odds, in every lawful way, and 
to the last available moment, before I will yield 
the control of Missouri to her traitorous inhab- 
itants. No such disgrace and disaster shall 
befall her, if in my power to prevent it. 

As, from the moment of the outbreak of the 
rebellion, the spirit of shameless lying has 
characterized those engaged in it, and those 
who are with it in heart, so now the main wea- 
pon of the Conservatives of Missouri against 
the Radicals is atrocious and persistent false- 
hood. We are charged, as a body, with pur- 
poses which we have never expressed or enter- 
tained. A strenuous effort has been mai^, upon 
the basis of false and wholly groundless impu- 
tations, to build up in opposition to us a so- 
called " Law and Order party ;" and "Law and 



Order meetings " have been held in some coun- 
ties, at which the Eadical Union men have been 
denounced in the same category with rebels and 
bushwhackers. We have been stigmatized as 
*'Jacobins;" as "revolutionary t'actionists;" 
as "engaged in schemes looking to 
revolution and violence;" as "in rebellion 
against the Union and the Constitution;" as 
''attempting to overthrow the State Govern- 
ment;" as "the party of commotion, and vio- 
lence, and crime, and anarchy, and disregard of 
all law: " and " men of 'all parties, who are in 
favor of preserving the peace of the State, of 
enforcing the laws, and protecting citizens from 
violations of the laws," are invited to attend 
" Law and Order meetings ;" where the " erring 
brother" returned from " i'rice's army," the 
bushwhacker, the secessionist, the Copperhead 
and the "Southern sympathizer" skulk in, to 
help men claiming loyalty pass resolutions de- 
faming and denouncing the Eadical Union men 
of Missouri ! It is the old game of the pursued 
thief crying "stop thief!" There is but one 
way to meet it, and 1 have so met it wherever I 
have spoken in this State. 1 say here, in the 
capitol of the State, as I have repeatedly said 
elsewhere, that whoever, directly or by implica- 
tion, in speech, in writing, or in print, charges 
upon the Eadical Union party of Missouri any 
intent of revolutionary violence or unlawful act, 
utters an atrocious lie. I like not to use that 
word in a public address ; but the circumstances, 
in my opinion, demand it. The true Union 
men of Missouri have suifered enough of outrage 
and defamation at the hands of her disloyal 
people. We ought not quietly to submit any 
longer to be branded as unfaithful to our obli- 
gations as law-abiding and patriotic citizens. 
We are in heart and soul loyal to our country, 
to law, to duty, to honor, and to truth: and that 
is infinitely more than he who has been, in fact 
or in feeling, with this hell-born rebellion, can 
say, or in his conscience — if he has any— would 
dare to say he is. 

My friends, that there is excitement among 
the loyal people of Missouri cannot be denied. 
The presence here to-day of this large Mass Con- 
vention, from every part of the State, affirms it. 
And there is cause for excitement. The loyal 
inhabitants of this ill-fated State have suffered 
more than those of any other State that has ad- 
hered to the Union. They have endured every 
form of aggravated and unmerited wrong. Loy- 
alty to the Constitution and the Union has 
brought bitterness to them. Their property has 
been wrested from them by pillaging bands of 
traitors ; their habitations have been given to 
the flames ; they have been murdered in cold 
blood ; and they have been disarmed by the au- 



thorities in whose support they were ready and 
willing to do all and venture all ; thereby be- 
coming an easier prey to the blood-thirsty 
fiends that infest wide districts of our State. 
Surrounded by treachery the most adroit and 
cruel; beset by devilish marauders, whose ap- 
pearance they know not when or where to guard 
against; trembling by day and by night for 
their jxissessions and their families ; worn and 
wasted by robbery, arson, and every outrage; 
and a]ipar»ntly given over utterly in many 
places to the grasp of the guerrilla and the 
bushwhacker; they are, in large portions of the 
State, liarassed, impoverished, and overborne 
by accumulated calamity, beyond any concep- 
tion of those who only read the meagre reports 
which find their way into the public journals of 
the day. ' Is it a marvel that they are excited ? 
Would it not be wonderful if they were not? What 
other people ever endured so much without ex- 
citement ? Shall men sit quietly down and with 
indifference see themselves despoiled, beggared, 
and driven forth as fugitives from their homes ? 
Have we got to that point when fathers can look 
with stoicism upon the slaying of their sons, 
and wives upon the murder of their husbands ? 
If we have, then has the time come when popu- 
lar excitement should be put down, as detrimen- 
tal to the body politic. But that point is not 
yet reached. Our hearts are not yet callous to 
our own miseries, or to those of others. We 
are not able to see why such full, heaping 
measure of wrong should be dealt out to loyal 
people, while the disloyal eat and drink and 
sleep and work and journey in peace and safety. 
We do not comprehend why protection should 
be so fully accorded, as we know it to be, to 
men of known disloyalty, while the loyal citi- 
zen is not only not protected, but has been re- 
quired to forego his Constitutional right to bear 
arms, and to surrender to the military power 
the weapons upon which alone he eould de- 
pend for protecting himself, his family, 
and his property. We do not under- 
stand why military officers who pursued the 
miscreants of blood and plunder with an en- 
ergy that threatened their extermination, should, 
without a word of explanation, be relieved of 
their commands, or mustered out of service, in 
the midst of their career, and succeeded by men 
under whose administration the work of spolia- 
tion and blood is plied with renewed vigor and 
success. We do not see why large numbers of 
men — or indeed any — who at the onset of the re- 
btllion were outspoken and offensive Secession- 
ists, should be appointed to high military posi- 
tions under the State Government, while men 
always and unconditionally for the Union are 
refused such positions, or thrust from them. 



We do not perceive why men of thorough 
and consistent loyalty should be arrested 
and imprisoned by the military authorities, for 
no assigned cause, or for so small a cause as 
questioning the wisdom and purity of Governor 
Gamble's administration and policy; and we re- 
sent such arrests, and ought to resent them. And 
least of all do we comprehend why the earnest 
and beseeching appeals of Missouri's loyal and 
suft'ering people to the head of the nation for 
protection, should, apparently, be intercepted 
or neutralized, and he be made to believe that 
they proceed from a "pestilent faction," who«e 
aim is to "torment " him. It is because of all 
these things that tbere is excitement among the 
loyal people of Missouri ; and 1 say that they 
would deserve to suffer on, if they we^e not ex- 
cited. But it is not an excitement which 
threatens or looks to any lawless or reckless 
proceeding. It asks only redress for incalcula- 
ble evils, by lawful means; and this ("onven- 
tion is one of the means it takes to make itself 
heard and felt in quarters where, to hear and feel 
it, may remove or mitigate the sore trials under 
which our people have suffei ed. God grant that 
those in power may sive heed to the voice of 
Missouri's loyal people, before that burden be- 
comes intolerable ! 

But not in these matters alone, bitter and 
hard to be borne as they are, have the loyal 
Union people of Missouri been wronged. While 
conservative policy has left them to be pillaged 
and murdered, it has gathered its sirength and 
put forth its hand to wrest from them their rightful 
control in the affairs of Missouri, and to shape 
the fundamental law and the organic institutions 
of our State, acoordiiig to the lehests of her disloyal 
'people. A coalition has been formed to over- 
throw the Radical Union party, and deliver the 
State over to the dominion of that Conservative 
party, which contains all the disloyalty of Mis- 
souri. At the head of that coalition is Gover- 
nor Gamble ; and he is sustained in it by almost 
every Federal oflice-holder of any note in the 
State; by a host of State officers appointed by 
himself to positions of high impor- 
tance, civil and military ; and by an 
army of politicians, who are seeking 
their own advancement, and know that from the 
Radical Union men of Missouri they have noth- 
ing to hope. No such combination has anywhere 
been made against the loyal people of any loyal 
State. It is the great feature of the day in Mis- 
souri. It is known to every observing man in 
the State, and it attracts the attention of the 
country. I wish to portray its course of wrong 
to Missouri's loyal people. I will do it plainly, 
fairly, and thoroughly ; for I deem it of the 
greatest moment that, in this State and through- 



out the loyal States, the position of our affairs, 
and tliat of the men who have wronged that 
peoplfe, should be clearly understood. 1 will 
endeavor to present a historical summary of 
the leading facts, in such simple and connected 
form, that no man can fail to comprehend the 
whole matter. 

The point at which I begin is the accession of 
Governor Gamble to the Provisional Chief Magis- 
tracy of Missouri, on the 31st of July, 1S61; 
for from that time the course of public affairs in 
this State has connected itself directly with the 
circumstances of the present period. His first 
public declaration as Governor was significant 
of his own opinions and feelings, and of those 
of the people he was appointed to govern. On 
the 4th of August, ISiil, he issued a proclama- 
tion to that people, in which, referring to his 
appointment, he said it '■'would satisfy all that no 
countenance would l>e afforded to any scheme or 
any conduct calculated in any degree to interfere 
ivith the institutiirn of Slavery existing in the State, 
and that to the utmost extent of Executive power that 
institution tvould he jirotected. " Concerning this 
remarkable declaration two things are apparent : 
first, that Governor Gamble was then, and de- 
sired it to be known that he was, a pro-Slavery 
man, and intended to be a pro-Slavery Governor; 
and second, that he believed the people of 
Missouri to be a pro-Slavery people; as, in my 
opinion, a large majority — perhaps seven- 
eighths— of them then were. This proclamation 
is the first point to be borne in mind ; for it 
assumes importance in connection with subse- 
quent events. 

The sentiments of the people of Missouri in 
regard to the institution of Slavery underwent 
a radical change, not many months after that 
proclamation was issued. They came, by slow 
but sure degrees, to understand that this re- 
bellion had but one origin and purpose — the 
aggrandizement of Slavery as a political power, 
the destruction of the noble Republic inherited 
from our fathers, and the substitution for it in 
the South of a great and strange Empire, based 
on Slavery, and intended for subjugation, 
piracy, and eventual dominion over this whole 
continent. When they saw it announced au- 
thoritatively by the parties engaged in the work 
of founding that empire, that they were only 
consummating what had Ijcen in conspiracy for 
forty years ; when they saw that for Slavery the 
Southern aristocrats were striving to overturn 
ttie liberties of the American people, disrupt 
their Union, and destroy their Constitution ; 
when they perceived that the success of this 
unexampled and incomparable scheme of out- 
rage, fraud, perjury, and treason, would plunge 
this nation into perpetual war, and that as long 



as Missouri should be a slave State, she would 
he one of the chief victims of that war; when, 
1 say, all these things became manifest to 
tlie loyal peeple of Missouri, a mighty 
revolution in their opinions concerning Slavery 
began, and from month to month moved on 
with tremendous rapidity and force. Never, I 
will venture to aflirm, was there witnessed in 
this country so marked and swift a revolution 
of piiblic sentiment in regard to so important 
a matter. And it was all the more glorious, 
because it sprang from a glowing and vital pa- 
triotism, whicn rejoiced in any sacrifice of opin- 
ion or interest in so holy a cause. While South- 
ern traitors were demanding the emancipation 
of Slavery from contact with the free institu- 
tions of the North, the loyal people of Missouri 
demanded her emancipation from contact with 
that institution, which they recognized as aim- 
ing fatal blows at all they loved in country, all 
they cherished in memory, and all they clung to 
in hope for themselves and their posterity. 

The tendency of the public mind to the remo- 
val of Slavery from Missouri received a decided 
impulse in April, 18(52, in consequence of the 
passage by Congress, upon the recommendation 
of the President, of a resolution, declaring 
" that the United States ought to co-operate with 
any State which may adopt gradual abolishment 
of Slavery, giving to such State pecuniary aid, 
to bo used by such State in its discretion, to 
compensate for the inconveniences, public and 
private, produced by such change of system." 
The great obstacle to Emancipation in Missouri 
was the provision in her Constitution, prohibi- 
ting the Legislature from passing any law " for 
the emancipation of slaves, without the consent 
of their owners, or without paying them, before 
such emancipation, a full equivalent for such 
slaves so emancipated." As such compensation 
from our own resources was an impossibility, 
the resolution of Congress held out the hope of 
its coming from the National treasury, and the 
feeling in favor of Emancipation received there- 
from increased force and extension. 

With the loyal sentiment of Missouri in this 
transition state from decided pro-Slaveryism to 
radical anti-Slaveryism, the State Convention 
assembled on the 2d of June, 1862, on the call of 
the Governor. On the 7th of that month, Judge 
Breckinkidge introduced into that body an Or- 
dinance proposing a plan of gradual Emanci- 
pation, to be submitted to the people for their 
ratification or rejection, on the first Monday of 
August, ISiU, and supported it in a speech; at 
the close of Avhich, on motion of Judge Hall, of 
Randolph, the Ordinance was laid on the table, 
by a vote of 52 to 19 ; and, to use a well-known 
and significant expression, exultingly applied, 



at the time, to the act, Emancipation was 
" Mlled at the first pop.'''' The Convention thereby 
pronounced itself opposed to Emancipation. 
It was a pro-Slavery body, and of course intol- 
erant. It would hear no more on the subject 
than what Judge Brecktnridge had a parlia- 
mentary right to urge, and having heard that, it 
was prepared to consign his proposition, and 
did consign it, to a tomb from which there 
should be no resurrection. 

Six days after this act of the Convention, on 
the 13th of June, Governor Gamble sent a mes- 
sage to that body, relating entirely to its action 
on Judge Breckinridge's Ordinance. He saw 
that that action "might be represented as rudely 
discourteous to the President and Congress," 
and "would, without doubt, be so misrepre- 
sented as to excite a hostile feeling to the State, 
among all those in authority who favor Eman- 
cipation, and thus iniurionshj afect tlie interests 
vf the State. ' ' The obj ect of that message, mani- 
fest upon its face, was to tell the members 
of the Convention how they might get out of the 
twofold scrape they had got into, with the Na- 
tional Government and with their own people. 
Not a word indicated the least sympathy with 
Emancipation; not a word took off the keen edge 
of the pro-Slavery proclamation of August, 1861. 
The Governor was still Missouri's pro-Slavery 
Governor. Eighteen months of Slavery's war 
upon the Union had, apparently, implanted in 
his mind no sentiment against the peculiar in- 
stitution, here or elsewhere; his sole anxiety 
was, that there should be "no appearance of a 
design to treat the offer of the President and 
Congress with neglect." He suggested, and 
most truly, that " it was not con- 
templated by the people, when electing the 
body, that it should ever act upon the subject of 
Slavery in the State, and therefore such action 
would be improper ;" a reason as valid for all 
future time, as then. lie suggested further, 
that "the public mind was so agitated already, 
that the proposal of any scheme of Emancipation 
would produce dangerous excitement;" a rea- 
son for non-action fully as forcible in June, 1863, 
as in June, 1862. These suggestions he accom- 
panied with the following remarks : 

" In theory. Conventions are understood to 
possess all political power, but in actual prac- 
tice they confine themselves to the measures 
upon which the people at the time ot their elec- 
tion expected them to act. When this Conven- 
ti9n was chosen, the subject before the public 
mind was the relations between the 
State and the general Government. Act- 
ing upon this subject, the Convention 
deposed a Governor and Legislature, because 
they were trying to disturb those rela- 
tions ; militia ordinances were adopted, be- 
cause a militarjr force was necessary to main- 
tain those relations ; the ofiices of all persons 



who refused to take an oath of allegiance were 
vacated, because ofiScial power in the hands of 
disloyal persons jiiight be employed to disturb 
such "relations ; laws were vacated, because they 
had been passed for the purpose of bringing on 
a collision with the general Government — in 
fine, the action of the Convention has been 
mainly addressed to the one subject which it 
was elected to consider, and to those which 
arose out of it. 

"When, then, it is asked to entertain a prop- 
osition, whieh is to effect a radical change in 
the social organization of the State, it is well 
warranted in declining to act upon the proposi- 
tion, upon the ground that the people, in choos- 
ing the Convention, never intended or imagined 
that the body would undertake any social revo- 
lution wholly unconnected with the relations 
between the State and the general Government. 
No person who understands the principles of 
our Government would object to such action, 
unless it be one who is willing to disregard all 
principle to accomplish a desired end." 

As I have said on former occasions, so I reit- 
erate now, that this language embodies and 
affirms the following five propositions : 

1. That Emancipation is a social revolution. 

2. That it is wholly imconnected with the re- 
lations between the State and the general Gov- 
ernment. 

5. That the people, in choosing the Conven- 
tion, never inUnded w imagined that it would 
undertake to act on the subject of Emancipa- 
tion. 

4. That, therefore, the Convention was well 
warranted in declining to act upon it. 

6. That whoever, understanding the princi- 
ples of our Government, would object to the 
Convention's so declining to act, is willing to 
disregard all principle to accomplish a desired 
end. 

No grounds could have been assumed 
more fatal to the propriety or expediency of any 
action by tliat Convention, at any time, upon 
the subject of Emancipation. We shall see, as 
we proceed, how the Governor maintained his 
own voluntarily-assumed position. 

There is a very striking fact disclosed by the 
Journal of the Convention in connection with 
the paragraphs just quoted from the Governor's 
message. The Convention, acting upon his sug- 
gestion, proceeded to consider how it should 
respond to the resolution of Congress. A com- 
mittee was appointed, which reported a pream- 
ble and resolutions. Lieutenant Governor Hall 
offered, as a substitute for the report of the 
committee, a preamble and a resolution, the 
latter of which was as follows : 

" Eesolmd, That while this Convention recog- 
nizes the liberality of the Government of the 
United States in the action referred to, yet the 
Convention thinks it should not act upon the 
subjectofEmancipatiou, for thefoUowing among 
other reasons." 

The resolution then copies, word for word. 



the paragraphs of the Governor's message above 
sited, except the first and last sentences. 
On ^ the vote upon the adoption of that 
substitute, every member who voted for it 
declared himself emphatically as sustaining the 
Governor's objections to any action by </<«< Con- 
vention, at any time, on the subject of Emanci- 
pation. And yet, one year afterward, Lieut. 
Gov. Hall was one of the committee that reported 
an Ordinance of Emancipation for that body to 
pass ; and fifteen of those who voted for his res- 
olution in June, 1862, changed front in June, 
1863, and voted for the ordinance then passed 
by that Convention ! 

Having seemingly given a death-blow to 
Emancipation in that body, the Convention ad- 
journed to the 4th day of July, 1863, when, with- 
out re-assembling, it was to stand adjourned 
sine die. It declared its work done, and each 
man went his way, never expecting to return. 
But the door was left open for the re-assembling 
of the body, upon the call of the Governor. One 
man held the power to reinstate at any moment 
the rule of that Convention; and we shall see 
how he exercised it. 

Five months after the Convention's action 
upon Judge Breckinridge's proposition, an 
election was held for members of the General 
Assembly. They were months of steady and 
rapid progress in the popular mind in favor of 
Emancipation. Every day the loyal people of 
Missouri grew more radical in sentiment 
against Slavery, their country's enemy. Mis- 
souri's Emancipation army was "marching on." 
The election resulted in the choice of a decided 
majority of Emancipationists in each House; 
but unfortunately, mainly through the machina- 
tions of Federal office-holders, high in position in 
ovr State, differences of opinion as to plans of 
Emancipation were created. The Legislature 
met on the 29th of December, 1862, and on the 
following day received the Governor's message. 
To the surprise of many who remembered his 
proclamation of August, 1861, and his message 
to the Convention in June, 1862, he declared 
himself in favor of Emancipation, and recom- 
mended action by the Legislature in 
relation to it. But he felt the em- 
barrassment produced by the Constitutional 
limitation upon the power of the Legislature, 
before referred to. As it was impossible for the 
State, unaided, to pay any such equivalent for 
the slaves emancipated as that provision re- 
quired, the Governor recommended that an act 
should be passed, providing that the children 
of slave women, born thereafter, should be born 
free, and should remain in the custody and un- 
der the control of the owner of their mothers 
until attaining a certain age; which plan, he 



considered, would require no compensation to 
be paid to the slaveholder but for " tlie dimin- 
ished value of the female slaws thus rendered inca- 
pable of learing slaves.'''' And such an act, so ut- 
utterly impotent to remove Slavery from our 
soil,— for, standing by itself, it would never 
have secured freedom to one-tenth of the chil- 
dren born after its passage,— he intimated 
might be made to take effect, upon provision be- 
ing made by Congress for the small amount of 
compensation required ! 

This was gravely proposed by Governor Gam- 
ble as a plan of Emancipation ; proposed as an 
"effectual mode of extinguishing the desire of 
the rebel leaders to have this State within the 
pretended Confederacy ;'' proposed as a means 
of " encouraging immigration from the free 
States!" It would have been about equal in its 
effects to dropping a homeopathic pill into the 
proboscis of a sick elephant. I refer to it, be- 
cause it is a fact connected with the wrong done 
to the loyal people of Missouri, which is to be 
exposed. 

The Legislature sat from the 2ltth of December, 
1862, to the 23d of March, ISrtS, and then ad- 
journed over to the K'th of November next, hav- 
ing done nothing to advance the cause of Eman- 
cipation. On the ISth of March, the Senate, by 
a vote of 17 to 15, passed a Concurrent Eesolu- 
tion, requesting the Governor to call the Con- 
vention together at an early period, for the 
purpose of taking into consideration the subject 
of Emancipation ; every Conservative voting 
for it, and, aided by two Eadicals, passing it. 
iVo attempt was ever made to talce up this resolution 
ill the House, nor could any such attempt have 
been successful. On the same day, the Senate 
passed a bill for the election of a new Conven- 
tion, provided the old Convention did not, be- 
fore the succeeding first of July, adopt a scheme 
of Emancipation. Two attempts were made to 
get this bill up in the House; but it required a 
two-thirds vote to suspend the rules ; and each 
time theeffort failed by a single vote. And with 
both resolution and bill thus pending in 
the House, and open for action when the Legis- 
lature should re-convene in November, the 
adjournment took place. But let it not be sup- 
posed that the effort in the House to get the bill 
lip, indicated any desire among the Emancipa- 
tionists there to pass it in the shape in which it 
came from the Senate. On the contrary, it was 
perfectly understood that if it had been got up, 
the provision referring to the old Convention 
would have been certainly struck out. 

The facts which 1 have thus stated in detail are 
all necessary to a correct understanding of the 
case. Let us now examine their bearings upon 



the main point — the wrong done to the loyal 
people of Missouri. 

I have placed before you Governor Gamble's 
message to the Convention in June, 1862, and 
his message to the Legislature in the following 
December ; and how does the matter stand ? 
"Why, thus. Ill his judgment, at tlie former pe- 
riod, the Convention had no business to act 
upon Emancipation at all, because the people, 
in choosing it, never intended or imagined 
it would undertake to act upon that 
that subject ; and therefore the Convention 
was well warranted in killing Judge 
Breckinridge's Ordinance ; and no one would 
find fault with it for so doing, unless he was 
ivilli)ig to disregard all principle. So much for the 
Convention. Then, as to the Legislature, he 
finds that it is hampered by a Constitutional 
provision, which precluded any action on its 
part, except to declare after-born children of 
slave mothers to be born free ; and that action 
was suggested to take effect only when Congress 
should provide the means for paying the owners 
of the mothers for the injury resulting to them 
from making the mothers incapable of breeding 
any more slaves. Here, then, Avas a Governor 
declaring himself in favor of Emancipation, and 
arguing in favor of it to a Legislature that was 
in favor of it, but almost powerless to do any- 
thing for it, which Legislature represented a 
people that were overwhelmingly in favor of it: 
what was the course he should have taken ? Can 
any right-minded man hesitate in declaring 
that, if the Governor was earnestly an Emanci- 
pationist, he should and would have pointed the 
Legislature to some way by which the popular 
will might be carried into effect ? As matters 
then stood he found the way blocked ; why did 
he ignore the only way that lay wide open — a 
direct appeal to the people, in the election of a new 
Convention? 

This is no idle question. Every man knows 
that he can often judge another as well by what 
he does not, as by what he does. If a man is 
drowning, and you do not throw a rope to him 
when you have one, because you have tried to 
save him by your hand and failed, would not 
all the world say, and say justly, that you were 
indifferent to his fate, or wanted him to drown? 
And so, when Governor Gamble recommended 
Emancipation to the Legislature which was 
powerless, and also held that the Convention 
ought not to act upon the subject, because it was 
not elected for any such purpose, and at the 
same time said not one word in favor of, or in 
allusion to, that other course which, if pursued, 
would have secured Emancipation, and secured 
it as the people desired it, and so settled the 
matter forever ; I demand, and have a right to 



demand, why he preserved that silence ? Will 
it be said it was not his province ? He is re- 
quired by the Constitution of the State to " re- 
commend to their consideration such measures 
as he may deem necessary and expedient." Will 
it be said it was not proper for him to suggest 
that particular mode of action ? Why not ? He 
could suggest to the Convention excuses and 
arguments to sustain their action on Judge 
Breckinridge's Ordinance; and he could suggest 
Emancipation to the General Assembly, and 
argue in favor of it ; why not suggest and sup- 
port the only means of obtaining Emancipation 
in such way as to satisfy the people ? Will it be 
said that he could not have known that a re- 
commendation from him on that point would 
have helped the measure? He had no right, for 
that reason, to withhold it, any more than to 
refuse to recommend any other measure, because 
he did'nt know whether it would be adopted. 
But nothing is more certain, than that, if he had 
advocated a new ConcenUon,an act providin<i for it 
wmild have lee?h passed. But here came in a bug- 
bear, that was paraded, during the whole ses- 
sion of the Legislature, to defeat the bill for a 
new Convention, viz : that if a new Convention 
should be called, there might arise a conflict be- 
tween it and the old Convention. But that was 
impossible, unless Governor Gamble, after 
the new Convention was authorized, should 
call the old one together again; for 
it never could meet again, except upon 
his call. And so it was perfectly in 
his power to have procured a new Convention, 
and also to have prevented the re-assembling of 
the old one. Why did he not so do? I cannot say 
upon his authority, for he has never told me. or, 
so far as I know, told the world. I am forced 
to conclusions upon the facts as they are known 
to the public. If my conclusions are unjust to 
Governor Gamble, I am sorry for it; I do not 
nfek them. I say, citizens of Missouri, that I 
can see no other reason for his utter silence in 
regard to a new Convention, than that he did 
not intend that the people should have any 
further opportunity to say or do anything what- 
ever, practically, on the subject of Emancipa- 
tion. In other words, he determined, if possible, 
to wrest the whole matter out of their Jiands, and 
force Emancipation upon them through the old Con- 
vention, regardless of their wishes, and in defi- 
ance of their sacred right to shape their own 
fundamental law and their own do- 
mestic institutions. Thi.s is the only conclu- 
sion 1 can arrive at, and, before God, I believe 
it to be a right one. 

That it was Governor Gamble's purpose so to use 
the old Convention, is manifest from subsequent 
events. The Legislature adjourned on the 23d 



of March, 1868, and on the 15th of April he issued 
his call for the Convention to meet on the 15th 
of June, to " consult and act upon the subjectof 
Ei^ancipation of slaves, and such other matters 
as may be connected with the peace and pros- 
perity of the State." In his judgment, it was 
" of the highest importMice to the interest of the 
State that some scheme of Emancipation should 
be adopted." 

My friends, looking at this act of the Gover- 
nor in the light of his previous declarations, 
and of the then condition of things in the State, 
I cannot but regard it as one of the most extra- 
ordinary exercises of Executive power that 
have ever fallen under my observation ; and as 
indefensible as it was extraordinary. Why, 
look at it. Only ten months and two days before 
the date of that call, he had solemnly declared 
to the Convention, that the people, in choosing 
that body, never intended or— mark the word — 
imagined that it would undertake to act on the 
subject of Emancipation; and now he calls 
them to do that very thing! He had told 
the Convention, moreover, that it was 
justified in killing an Ordinance of Emancipa- 
tion in the way it did, and yet he calls it together 
to pass such an Ordinance. He had, with a severity 
of expression unusual for him, declared, in 
effect, that no man of principle would have that 
Convention act on that subject ; and yet he con- 
venes it for that very purpose ! What does this 
mean ? Was it the same man speaking in June, 
1862, in condemnation of any action by that 
Convention upon that subject, who, in April, 
1868, called them to act upon it ? Yes, it was 
the same Governor Gamble in body, but unfor- 
tunately not in mind. A change, a wondrous 
change, had come over his opinions in that brief 
time. He no longer saw that it was wrong for 
that Convention to take Emancipation in hand 
and act upon it, but contrariwise saw it was 
right ; though the grounds xipon which he "based his 
previous opinion remaiiwd precisely the same. He 
no longer held that any man who wanted it so 
to act was an unprincipled man; for he wanted 
that very thing. He saw no more that Emanci- 
pation was a social revolution, wholly uncon- 
nected with the relations between the State 
and the general Government, which the people, 
in choosing that Convention, never dreamed it 
would undertake. And, above all, he forgot 
that for such a body, so elected, to assume to 
act upon such a subject, was a grievous wrong 
to a people who were at that very time repre- 
sented by another set of men, in their General 
Assembly ; who had been elected twenty-one 
months after the Convention, and actually had 
pending before them propositions looking to 
a settlement of the whole matter by a new 



Convention, to be elected for that express end. 
It is due to Governor Gamble, and to the 
cause of truth and fair discussion, that 1 should 
take time and space to present whatever grounds 
I find anywhere taken by him in defense of his 
recall of that Convention, as it were, from the 
brink ot its grave. He has twice expressed 
himself in relation to that matter ; first, in his 
message to the Convention, at the opening of the 
late session ; and secondly , in a speech he made 
in the Convention on the 27th of June. In his 
message he used the following language : 

"The importance of the subject, [Emancipa- 
tion,] in its relation to all the interests of the 
State, demanded, in myjudgment, very speedy 
action by a body capable oi finally disposing of 
it, by the adoption of some wise and justscheme 
of Emancipation. The Senate passed a joint 
resolution requesting me to call the Convention 
together, and also a bill for the election of dele- 
gates to a new Convention, provided your body 
should not, before the first day of July next, 
adopt a scheme of Emancipation, Although 
neither of these measures was acted upon in the 
House of Kepresentatives, yet the friends of 
Emancipation in the House exhibited the great- 
est earnestness in endeavoring to have the bill 
which came from the Senate acted upon by the 
House, and were only foiled by the application 
of stringent parliamentary rules. This action 
in the Assembly gave strength to my own con- 
viction, that you should be called together, 
rather than wait until the Assembly should 
again convene in November next, and then ini- 
tiate measures of Emancipation, which might 
require some time before they could have eifect." 

In his speech in the Convention he thus ex- 
pressed himself : 

" This Convention is called in this city that 
there should be Emancipation— fS/ia;! there shall 
le Emancipation. 

"It is said that this is in conflict with the 
communication I made to this body last session. 
What is that communication in its general 
scope ? I say that an answer is demanded to 
the oflferof the General Government. The pre- 
sent position of the question here is such that 
you cannot act upon it ; and why ? Because 
you have laid it upon the table, which is a final 
disposition of the subject. I state reasons 
which you might assign as reasons for the course 
you adopted. 

" The suggestions ofiPered were made for the 
benefit of the Convention, and to make a cour- 
teous answer to the President and to Congress." 

In these two extracts we have all that the 
Governor has said, so far as I know, in defense 
of his calling that Convention to act on the sub- 
ject of Emancipation. The singular vapidness of 
the latter will attract attention. It gives no 
answer to the charge of inconsistency, takes 
back nothing, explains nothing. His justifica- 
tion, if any, is to be found in the passage quoted 
from his message to the Convention ; and let us 
examine that. 

He says he called the Convention together, be- 
cause, first, in his judgment, "very speedy 
action" was demanded; secorul, because the 



Senate had, by a majority of two votes, passed a 
resolution requesting him to do so; third, be- 
cause the Senate had passed a bill for the elec- 
tion of a new Convention, provided the old one 
did not, before the first of July, 1S63, adopt a 
scheme of Emancipation ; and fourth, because 
the friends of Emancipation in^the House exhib- 
ited the greatest earnestness in endeavoring to 
have that bill acted upon by the House. 

My friends, I confess to a feeling of sadness 
and humiliation at such an exhibition on the 
part of one so high in station, for whom, for 
more than a quarter of a century, I had enter- 
tained the highest respect. Never before, prob- 
ably, did a high public ofiicer in this country 
more expose himself to criticism and 
condemnation, than did Governor Gam- 
ble in that assignment of reasons for 
that act. The utter insufiBciency, the absolute 
puerility of such a defense, must be apparent 
to the most limited comprehension. Nay, more 
and worse, does it not bear the plainest marks 
of insincerity ? Why was " very speedy action " 
necessary? What circumstances forbade that 
Emancipation should be postponed until the 
people could act upon it through a new Conven- 
tion ? He states none, nor can^any man desig- 
nate any. But if they existed when he issued 
his call on the 15th of April, they must have ex- 
isted before the adjournment of the Legislature 
on the 23d of March : why, if there was such ur- 
gency, did he not communicate it to that 
body, and let it provide for the exigency ? The 
old Convention was elected twenty-eight days, 
and assembled thirty-eight days, after the 
passage of the act authorizing it; what 
was to prevent a like promptness in the election 
and assembling of a new Convention ? Had the 
Legislature passed an act to call a new Conven- 
tion, it might have met, passed an Ordinance 
of Emancipation, and adjourned, before 
the day he fixed for the old Convention to 
assemble; and so the "very speedy action " 
would have been had, sooner than it was had 
at the hands of the body which assembled in 
obedience to his sole will. As to the reasons 
based on the proceedings in the two branches of 
the General Assembly, they are not worthy of 
argument or notice. To the whole batch I sim- 
ply oppose his own declaration, in 1S62, " that 
the people in choosing the Con'vention never intended 
or imagined that the tody would undertake any 
social revolution wholly unconnected with the rela- 
tions between the /State and the general Govern- 
ment ; " and his still more emphatic announce- 
ment, in the same paragraph, that ''^ no person 
tvho understands the principles of our Government 
ivould object to such action [as that upon Judge Brech- 
inridge''s Ordinance,'] unless it le one who is willing 



10 



TO DiSBEOABD ALL PRINCIPLE to accoiyipUsli, a de- 
sired end.'''' Let Governor Gamble reconGile 
himself with himself, if he can. If he can es- 
cape his own denunciation, it is more than I 
could, were I in his position. 

But not alone on the grounds so stated by 
Governor Gamble was it a wrong to the loyal 
people of Missouri to summon that Convention 
to the great work of Emancipation. Even if 
those grounds had not existed, there were others 
which made it offensive and injurious to the 
people for that body to handle that great sub- 
ject. Elected" in February, 1861, it was, in no 
respect, except in the persons of the eleven 
members elected in May and June, ISGS, to fill 
vacancies, an authentic exponent of the public 
sentiment of Missouri when it assembled to 
make its final record. The cunstituency of 1S63 
was, ill law and in fact, wholly different from the 
constituency of 1861. The Convention itself, in 
June, 1862, had prescribed new conditions for 
the exercise of the elective franchise, requiridg 
the taking of a solemn and searching oath of 
allegiance, and expurgation from complicity in 
the rebellion after the I7th of December, 1861, 
as a pre-requisite to the right of voting. Every 
man who would not take that oath was banished 
from the polls, was disfranchised as a voter, 
was not one of the people whose will was to be 
considered. The control of the State had passed, 
by fundamental constitutional enactments, into 
the hands of its loyal people, or those who 
would stand that test of their loyalty. That 
Convention, therefore, was no embodiment or 
representative of the will of the rightful constitu- 
ency of 1863, but of a former and a different 
constituency; a large proportion of which was 
then in the armies of the rebellion, or pursuing 
the bloody work of the bushwhacker, or sulk- 
ing at home in self-imposed abstinence from the 
right of suffrage, because it dared not appeal to 
God to witness its freedom from the stain of 
treason, or the sincerity of its allegiance to the 
noblest Government He ever vouchsafed to man. 
When, therefore, the Governor convened 
that body to perform the glorious work 
of Emancipation, he convened a body 
which, whatever its legal power, had no more 
moral right to do that work, without submitting 
its action to the present constituency, that is, 
the loyal people of Missouri, than the Legisla- 
ture of Maine or Oregon would have had. 

Not only so, but more. It was a body which 
had shown itself, a year before, opposed to the 
consideration even of the subject of Emancipa- 
tion, and it has never signified that its feelings 
had changed on that point. True, it ordained 
what it termed Emancipation ; but not because 
it desired or favored that great measure; but 



because it was resolved to prevent its accom- 
plishment by, and according to the desire of, the 
loy^ people of the State. No man lives who 
dares affirm that a majority of that Convention 
were for Emancipation on principle, from con- 
viction, or in feeling. It was essentially a pro- 
Slavery body. Of the fifty-one members who 
voted for the ordinance passed, forty were 
slaveholders; a few of whom should be honored 
for their advocacy of the cause of Freedom for 
its own sake ; all the rest were but playing a, 
fart. And it was a body, the control of which 
was in the hands of men whose past acts there 
gave evident token of disloyalty. Eighteen were 
there, who voted in July, 1861, against the deposition^ 
of Governor Jaclcson; and sixteen of them — all 
who were present at the time, and more than 
enough to have changed the result in each case 
— voted, in 1863, against an election of a Gover- 
nor and other State officers by the people, and 
for the exemption of slave property from taxa- 
tion ; and eight of them— more than enough to 
have changed the result — against submitting the 
ordinance of Emancipation to the people for 
ratification. Twenty-one were there, who voted, 
in 1861, against turning out the traitorous Legis- 
lature of that year. Sixteen were there, who 
voted against the abrogation by the Convention 
of the treasonable laws enacted by that 
Legislature. Twenty-two were there, who 
voted against the test-oath ordinance 
of June 10, 1862, intended to exclude trai- 
tors from the polls. Sixteen were there, who 
had voted against allowing our brave soldiers 
to vote in their camps beyond the limits of the 
State. The efficient control, in fact, was in the 
hands of those who had in such ways signalized 
their disloyalty; aided by seventeen, who were 
bound to the Gamble dynasty by offices of trust 
and profit received from it. And this was the 
body which, as Colonel Doniphan said at Lib- 
erty, after its adjournment, was convened by 
Governor Gamble, on the request of " certain 
wealthy slaveholders residing in different parts of 
the State." For what purpose? To oi'dain 
Emancipation according tothe will of the State's 
loyal people ? No ; but that ''^something should he 
done to save slave property from utter waste and spo- 
liation, and give to slaveholders a Irief oppoi-tunity 
to maTce the best disposition in thiir power of their 
slaves'.''"' 

From such a body, convened on such a prin- 
ciple, controlled by such influences, and work- 
ing to such ends, what could be expected, other 
than has been realized ? Called ostensibly to 
destroy Slavery, it labored disloyally for its 
preservation from the early doom which the 
loyalty of Missouri, if it could have spoken, 
would have awarded it, and postponed Eman- 



11 



cipation, nominally, until the 4th of July, 1870, 
but in fact for a quarter of a century longer.* 
While there were those who desired and labored 
for Emancipation for its own sake, and for the 
sake of Missouri and the Union, the potential 
influence was, at heart, against Emancipation 
on any grounds, and equally against every rad- 
ical measure against Slavery anywhere. Few 
there yielded their pro-Slavery views in obedi- 
ence to the anti-Slavery sentiments of their peo- 
ple ; but there were numbers there who knew 
that they utterly misrepresented the popular 
will in the districts whence they came. Nothing 
concerning the body was more true or more ap- 
parent, than that, pretending to favor Emanci- 
pation, it was resolved to postpone it to the last 
possible moment, and to yield it on the least 
possible injurious terms to the slaveholder. 
And even that was done with the open avowal 
by some, that before the period fixed for the 
emancipation of the negro from slavery, and his 
transmission to a condition of servitude, the 



•Having, in a speech at St. Louis, on the 9th of July 
last, discussed the terms of the Ordinance pakscd by 
the Convention, it is sufficient here to present the Or- 
dinance itself, which is as follows : 

AN ORDINANCE to provide for certain amend- 
ments to the Constitution, and for Emancipation of 
Slaves. 

Be it ordained by the people of the Slate of Missouri 
in Convention assembled : 

Sec. 1. The first and second clauses of the 26th sec- 
tion of the third article of the Constitution are hereby 
abrogated. 

Sec. 2. That slavery and involuntary servitude, except 
for the punishment of crime, shall cease to exist in 
Missouri, on the fourth day of July, 1870; and all slaves 
within the Stale, at that day, are hereby declared to be 
tree; Provided, hoxoever, that all persons emancipated 
by this ordinance shall remain under the control, and be 
.subject to the authority of their late owners, represen- 
tatives and assigns, as servants, durinp: the following 

period, to-wit : those over fortv ■■'• >'' ■-:% for and 

during their lives; those und;-, of age, 

until they arrive at the age of t n .s; and 

those of all other ages, until tii. ; > ot July, 

1876. The persons, or their legal ipprcseiit:i lives, who, 
up to the moment of emancipation, were the owners of 
the slaves thereby freed, shall, during the period for 
which the services of such freed men are reserved to 
them, have the same authority and control over the said 
freed men, for the purpose of securing the possession 
and services of the same, that are now held absolutely 
by the master in respect of his slave : Provided, how- 
ever, that after the said fourth day of July, 1870, no 
person, so held to service, .shall be sold to a non-resi- 
dent of, or removed from, the State of Missouri, by the 
authority of his late owner, or his legal representa- 
tives. 

SEC. 3. That all slaves hereafter brought into this 
State, and not now belonging to citizens of this State, 
shall thereupon be free. 

Sec. jt All slaves removed by consent of their own- 
ers to any seceded State, after the passage by such State 
of an act or ordinance of secession, and hereafter 
brought into this State, by their owners, shall there- 
upon be free. 

Sec. 5. The CJeneral Assembly shall have no power to 
pass laws to emancipate slaves, without the consent of 
their owners. 

Sec. 6. After the passage of this ordinance, no slaves 
in this State shall be subject to State, county or muni- 
cipaltaxes. 



people would elect three Legislatures ; justifying the 
inference that, before that period should arrive, 
the work of the Convention might be repealed. 
Of Emancipation obtained at the hands of such a 
body, in the form it was pleased to grant,— pro- 
Slavery Emancipation, if such a solecism is allow- 
able,— Governor Gamble was the chief engineer ; 
showing himself still, to my mind, to be, as he was 
in 1861, Missouri's pro-Slavery Governor. True, 
the date he at one time proposed for Slavery to 
cease, nominally, in Missouri, was not that 
finally fixed ; but even in the same breath that 
he expressed himself as desiring the 4th of 
July, 1867, he announced with remarkable ac- 
commodativeness, "I am willing to receive any 
action that, in your judgment, is best." But 
some action he was resolved should be had, 
then and there, and he staked his official posi- 
tion as Governor upon it. In his speech to the 
Convention, on the 27th of June, this paragraph 
occurs: 

" If, after having exercised my best judgment 
upon this subject, 1 have called this Convention 
together for the purpose of action, and it should 
separate with the expression of a contrary 
opinion, or without adopting any scheme of 
Emancipation, I would not feel myself at liberty 
to continue in the exercise of 'the Executive 
function. I would feel, as a Minister in Eng- 
land, when a proposition of his is voted down 
in the Commons, that it is a denial of the cor- 
rectness of his judgmentas to the proper policy 
of the State, and he resigns at once; so I would 
not feel at liberty to continue in the Executive 
office, if the Convention did not pass some 
scheme of Emancipation ; because it would be 
a judgment adverse to what I think should be 
the policy of the State." 

And the pro-Slavery Convention, the balance 
of power in which was held by men whose past 
acts there proclaim them disloyal at heart, 
bowed to the Governor's demand for '^some 
scheme of Emancipation," because his continu- 
ance in olBce was necessary to them and their 
plans, and the price of it was any scheme of 
Emancipation they might choose to adopt! 
Easy terms ! facile Governor ! pliant Conven- 
tion ! and all that "something should be done 
to save slave property from utter waste and 
spoliation, and give to slaveholders a brief op- 
portunity to make the best disposition in their 
power of their slaves !" 

Had Governor Gamble been half as solicitous 
for the people's approval of his administration, 
as he was for the Convention's— half as fearful of 
a popular "denial of the correctnessof his judg- 
ment as to the proper policy of the State," as he 
was of such a denial by the Convention, he would 
have been a wiser man and a better Governor. 
He would then have known that the loyal people 
of Missouri long ago abandoned all hope of 
him as a defender and supporter of true, uncom- 
promising loyalty in our distressed and ravaged 



12 



state; and that since what he deemed "the 
proper policy of the State " has been inaugura- 
ted by him, there is not a disloyal man or looman 
in, all Missouri that is not Ms hacJcer. Truly, "the 
laborer is worthy of his hire," and the Gover- 
nor has received his. He enjoys position, pow- 
er, influence, but at what a terrible price ! But 
all his other mispolicies are of transient mo- 
ment, compared with that upon which he put his 
hazard in that Convention. Almost the life- 
breath of Missouri hung upon action there. 
His influence shaped that action, not for the cause 
of Emancipation and the Union, — one and the 
same in Missouri— but for Slavery, the Union's 
enemy, and for slaveholders, almost all its ene- 
mies, too. He lent the weight of his age and 
office, his name and his personal character, to a 
scheme for the support of Slavery, and the over- 
throw of the great loyal party in Missouri, and 
in that Convention he won, but lost all with 
loyal Missourians. To a man hastening on to 
threescore and ten and the grave, what earthly 
gain can overbalance such a loss? 

I have thus, my friends, endeavored to place 
before you the circumstances of the wrongs suf- 
fered, by the loyal people of Missouri through 
the policy of Governor Gamble, and the acts of 
the dead Convention, which he — the only man 
on earth that could do it— called to life again. 
In all American histoi'y there is no parallel to 
■ it, except in seme of those Southern States, 
where secession and rebellion were forced upon 
the people by the aristocrats of Slavery. Thank 
God! however, there is virtue enough left in 
the loyal people of Missouri to raise their 
voice against the attempt to trample 
upon their most sacred rights. They raise it 
here to-day ; not in revolutionary shouts, not in 
sedition, not in disregard of law, not in der- 
ogation of the duties of true citizenship, not in 
any unlawful or unauthorized way; but with 
the high and holy purpose that despotism shall 
be forced to recoil before the moral power of an 
aroused people. We are here to speak, to j udge, 
and to do what becomes freemen, in a manner 
suited to freemen. The cry of the arch-traitor 
was, " All we ask is to he let alt/neP^ and the pro- 
Slavery emancipationists of the defunct Con- 
vention shout the same cry. But they are not 
to be let alone. They are to be made to feel that 
they cannot commit treason against Popular 
Sovereignty, and be let alone. They are to learn 
that there is a People, to whom they are account- 
able, and upon whose necks they cannot put 
their feet with impunity. They are to 
be taught that they cannot snatch the 
work of Missouri's regeneration out of 
the hands of her loyal men, and 
then sing them to sleep. They are to under- 



stand that their work is r^ected by the people, 
and they, too. They ask us to accept their or- 
din^ce as a finality: we do accept it as a final- 
ity — of them! But, conceived, as it was, in 
wrong to the people ; planned, as it was, in the 
interest of slavery ; brought forth, as it was, by 
a body which was so conscious of its wrong, 
that it refused to let the people pass upon it, 
avowing through their leaders that the people 
would reject ii : and upheld, as it is, by every 
rebel, secessionist, bushwhacker, and Copper- 
head in the State; we, loyal men of Missouri, 
who love our country more than Slavery— who 
have borne patiently all that has befallen us, for 
the sake of the Union — who have consecrated 
our all to the maintenance of that Union against 
all enemies — and who are determined, come 
what may, to rebuke, denounce, and overthrow 
disloyalty, whatever form or guise it may as- 
sume — ive REJECT that Ordinance as a finality of 
THE QUESTION. We, and our brethren in loyalty 
in Missouri, are able to manage the af- 
fairs of Missouri, and we will do it. We 
ask no interference or help from traito'rs or their 
friends, in otfice or out. We will bide our time, 
as loyal men should, looking for the day of de- 
liverance. It will surely come. This is the 
day of the ofiice-holders and the politicians, the 
rebels and their sympathizers, the pro-Slavery 
men and their courtiers ; the day of the People 
will come, and with it confusion, dismay, and 
defeat to all who have dared to take part in the 
attempt of that Convention to dominate Missouri 
in the interest of Slavery. Let it not be said, as 
Mr. Henderson is reported to have said, that the 
Ordinance is the best that could be procured 
under the circumstances! Who made the circum- 
stances ? Who but he and those who acted with 
him ? And shall they make the circumstances, 
and then plead them in their own extenuation ? 
Let them stand aside, and the people will make 
other circumstances, from which something bet- 
ter will come forth, of measures and of men. 

Let us not, my friends, lose sight of the great 
and vital truth, that not only is this a struggle 
for Popular Sovereignty, but for loyal supremacy 
in Misscmn. Hi that view no man can compute 
its importance to us as a people. If we sleep 
now, all is lost. The loyal men of Missouri are 
her rightful sovereigns. If true to themselves 
and to the great cause which in the providence 
of God is committed to their keeping, all will 
be well. Missouri loyalty has become an hon- 
ored name in the land. It imports all of daunt- 
less bravery, stern resolution, and heroic forti- 
tude, that could illustrate the character and 
glorify the history of any people. Let us be 
true to our record and our fame, through to the 
end. If we have no country, we are wanderers; 



13 



if we have no Government, we are a prey to ty- 
rants; if we have no Union, we have 
neither country nor Government. All 
lives or dies with the Union. Let our 
souls cling to it, our fortunes sustain it, our 
hands uphold it, and, if need be, our blood flow 
for it. For nearly three years we have had to 
defend it. Let us defend it thrice three more, if 
such be the will of God ; defend it against the 
traitor in arms and the j traitor in heart; 
against the open and the secret foe ; against the 
wily politician, the cunning plotter, theunscru 
pulous schemer, though he wrap himself in the 
bright folds of the Stars and Stripes ; against 
perfldy, treachery, and disloyalty in every form, 
everywhere, always, to the glorious end that 
awaits us, if we are true. This our work is 
not in the South— it is here, in Missouri. 
We are beset on every side by the armed rebel, 
the prowling bushwhacker, the Southern sym- 
pathizer, the devotee of Slavery, all, openly or 
covertly, the Union's enemies. And they are 
ours, too. They are striving for the mastery in 
Missouri. The calling of that Convention to or- 
dain Emancipation was a part of their game. 
The next move will be to secure a Legislature 
that will repeal the test-oath ordinance, which 



excludes them from the polls ; and then will come 
the reign of disloyalty, the repeal of Emancipa- 
tion, the triumph of Slavery, the hunting down 
and driving out of Union men— all, all will 
come. Meet the issue here and now. Proclaim 
that Loyalty shall govern Missouri. Demand of 
the General Assembly a law authorizing the 
election of a new Convention, wherein the peo- 
ple, not politicians and office-holders, shall 
speak. Demand that the people be permitted to 
elect their own rulers. Demand Emancipation, 
immediate, uncanditional, final. Demand the per- 
petual disfranchisement of every man who has 
taken part, here or elsewhere, in this damnable 
rebellion. Enforce your demand by every lawful 
agency, device, and influence, with energy and 
fidelity, with firm confidence and steady perseve- 
rance ; and there is no power on earth that can 
resist you. Justice and right are with you ; every 
loyal heart in the land is with you ; the great 
and precious principles of free government are 
with you ; the mighty People are with you; and, 
in the not distant future, victory will be with 
you, and defeat and oblivion with all in Mis- 
souri who oppose the sacred cause of Popular 
Sovereignty and the Union. [Immense cheer- 
ing-] 



